Clothes-pin.



PATENTED MAY 2, 1905.

F. H. PERRY.

CLOTHES PIN.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 6.1904.

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NTTE STATES Patented May 2, 1905.

PATENT OEEIcE.

FREDERICK H. PERRY, OF MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO WILLARD B. L INDSLEY, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

CLOTHES-PIN.

SPECIFICATION forming part 0t Letters Patent N0. 788,672, dated. May 2, 1905. Application filed June 6, 1904;. Serial No. 211.244.

To all w/tmrt it may concern:

Be it known that]. FREDERICK H. PERRY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Medford, county of Middlesex, and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Clothes-Pins, of which the following description, in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like characters on the drawings representing like parts.

This invention has for its object the production of a novel clothes-pin of the class including wooden legs and a closing-spring, as in United States Patent No. 4 16,6 18, dated February 17, 1891, the aim of the invention being to so construct said spring as to reduce the breakage of the spring.

Figure 1 shows one side of a clothes-pin having a spring made in accordance with my invention; Fig. 2, a section in the line X. Fig. 3 is a view of the opposite side of said clothes-pin, and Fig. 4 shows the spring detached.

The clothespin has two legs a 5, provided back of their forward ends with transverse notches in their backs and having each a large groove at its face to embrace the line to which the clothes-pin is to be applied.

The spring 0 is composed of hard drawn spring-wire, and that the pin may be made to hold clothes so securely on the line as not to become detached the spring should be as stiff as possible. In shaping the wire in the production of the spring great care has to be taken to avoid such sharp bends as will tend to break the wire in the formation of the spring. right angles at two points near the center of its length, and then said wire close to each right-angled bend was further bent at more than a right angle, and the wire was then turned to form nearly a circle. I have found when making these springs from a coil of hard drawn wire that the wire is liable to break at the point where the second bend, sharper than a right angle, is started. As stated, the effectiveness of the pin and its clamping power is increased by using hard drawn wire, and the wire breaks at the points stated, especially Heretofore the wire was bent at when a portion of the wire which is a little harder than necessary is being handled in the machine employed for making the springs.

-It is of course understood that it is quite impossible to harden or temper the wire uniformly throughout its length, and consequently some parts-of the wire are harder than other parts, and the peculiar shape of the bend in the patent referred to is such as to cause the wire to break when making its said second bend. I have also in the clothespin herein to be described studied to use less wire in the spring, as it will be understood that the saving of but a short length of wire in the production of each spring results in a large saving where many thousand springs are made daily.

In accordance with my invention ll bend hard drawn spring-wire at two points 0 c, leaving a portion 5, with which contacts the face of each leg at Z). The bend at c is upward, as in Fig. 1, and the wire from the bend c is curved upwardly and backwardly to contact with and sustain one edge of the top leg a, and crossing the face or side of said leg the wire is bent into circular form and carried forwardly, as at 0 The bend 0 (see Fig. 3) is downward and then backward and upward to form a portion to contact with the edge of the leg 7). The bend started at a is continued as a curve, in which the wire crosses the face or side of the leg and is then carried forwardly and downwardly, as at 0". Each part c c" of the wire is then bent, as at 2, to leave parallel portions 3 3 to enter the outside cross-grooves in the back of each leg. By bending the wire as described I start the coiled or spring-y part of the spring by making a substantial right angled bend, and from that point Withoutmaking a bend sharper than a right-angled bend. close to the right-angled bend 1 give to the wire a simple curve, so that the part of the wire that serves as the spring starts directly from the ends of the middle portion 5 of the wire. By omitting the second more than right-angled bend close to the first right-angledbend referred to the molecular structure of the metal is less disturbed and breaking strains are done away with, and, further, I save time in forming the spring, for the reason that I omit one of the usual bends, and by omitting the motion usually required for making said second bends I am enabled to'turn out said springs more rapidly in practice-about one-third faster. Further, by starting the curved parts of the bends directly at the ends of the central portion 5 said central portion when the spring is assembled with the clothespin legs is carried farther toward the acting end of the legs a Z) and forms a fulcrum for said legs nearer their acting ends than in constructions previously known. Locating the central cross portion 5 of the spring farther forward toward the acting ends of the legs of the clothes-pin provides for increasing the leverage of the legs, so that the stiffer spring may be used without exerting extra force by the fingers when opening the pin.

I have the device herein shown as a clothespin; but in practice it will be remembered that the pin is employed as a clamping device for use with paper and various papers, so it will be understood that the term clothespin is only conventional and is not in any sense a limitation.

Among the uses to which the pin herein shown-may be put is in connection with garment-suspending means,-and these pins are sustained in, say, a frame of large stiff wire, and to enable these pins to be strung or mounted on the wire I have cut out a portion of the inner face of each leg at a point within the circle occupied by the coils of the spring, so that said wire may enter in the recess 10 so formed. The recess is of such size with relation to the wire embraced therein that the pin 'may be opened without pinching said wire.

Having fully described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. Aclothes-nin of the class described, comprising two legs and a wire spring bent to present a central portion disposed between the said legs and from one end of which the wire is bent upwardly, backwardly, downwardly and forwardly in a substantially continuous curve, and from the opposite end of said central portion said wire is bent downwardly, backwardly, upwardly and forwardly in a curve devoid of angular bands, the ends of the wire spring each engaging one of the legs.

2. A clothes-pin comprising two legs and a wire spring bent to present a central portion disposed between the said legs, from which central portion one end of the wire is bent upwardly, backwardly, downwardly and forwardly in a substantially continuous curve devoid of angular bends; said end engaging one of the legs the other end of the wire being curved downwardly, backwardly, upwardly, and forwardly in a curve devoid of angular bends and engaging the other of said legs, said legs being cut away at their inner faces to form a recess within the curve of the wire.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

F REDERICK H. PERRY.

WVitnesses:

Geo. W. GREGORY, V MARGARET A. DUNN. 

